"Your majesty, only the intense desire to dedicate our services to
Austria and our emperor!" exclaimed John, enthusiastically. "We
wished to implore your majesty to utter at length the word that will
deliver Austria and all Germany. Your majesty, this hesitation and
silence rests like a nightmare on every heart and every bosom; all
eyes are fixed hopefully on your majesty: Oh, my lord and emperor;
one word from your lips, and this nightmare will disappear; all
hearts will rejoice in blissful ecstasy, and every bosom will expand
and breathe more freely when your majesty shall utter this word:
'War! war!' We hold the sword in our hands; let the will of my
august emperor give us the right now to draw the sword against him
who, for years past, has swept like a destructive hurricane through
all Germany, all Europe, and who tramples alike on princes and
peoples, on liberty and law. Your majesty, in the name of your
people, in the name of all German patriots, I bend my knees here
before my lord and emperor, and thus, kneeling and full of
reverence. I implore your majesty to let the hour of deliverance
strike at length; let us, with joyful courage, expel the enemy who
has already so long been threatening our frontiers with defiant
arrogance: let us take the field against the impudent usurper, and
wrest from him the laurels which he gained at Austerlitz, and of
which he is so proud. Your majesty, your people are filled with
warlike ardor; your faithful Tyrolese are waiting only for a signal
to break their chains and rise for their beloved emperor. Your
Italian provinces are longing for the day when war shall break out,
in order to avenge themselves on the tyrant who promised them
liberty and brought them only slavery. The hour of retribution has
come for Napoleon; may your majesty consult our best interests by
saying that we are to profit by this hour, and that war, a mortal